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Saturday, May 28, 2011

TENORM, is an acronym that should strike fear in anyone down wind of Fukushima.
In short, TENORM are radioactive materials that one may naturally find in the environment but they have been concentrated to more deadly levels through human action.

(Q):How does one spot TENORM fallout?

(A): Look for the code word "NATURAL" in the Fukushima fallout reports and charts.

(Q): Are the high levels of short half life fallout you have measured in Saint Louis from Fukushima released TENORM fallout?

(A): There is no doubt that there is a smoking TENORM gun in Fukushima and its Shinigami winds are blowing in our direction. The question comes down to whether one believes that the high levels of short half life radioactive materials falling out here in Saint Louis are the offspring of longer lived radionuclides raising up from the local ground, or if they are the offspring of longer lived Fukushima released radionuclides being precipitated out of the upper atmosphere by towering thunderheads and tornadic storms.

I strongly suspect the high specific activity radioactive particles we have detected in the rain are actively being pulled down out of the upper atmosphere by severe thunderstorms and tornadic storms. These storms climb high into the atmosphere, resulting in Fukushima TENFORM fallout rain here in Saint Louis.

What makes that report damning is that in 2001 the expert stated "the short-lived radon daughters also emit gamma radiation, background exposure rates can increase by as much as 2 to 3 microR per hour for a short period during and/or following rain." To be generous, this means that natural short half life radon daughter fallout in the rain should max out at ONE times greater than background radiation. What makes this answer incredible fortuitous to find is that the person asking this question back in October of 2001 had tested some rain on his car using the exact paper towel method I use in my tests, AND he was using the exact same Inspector Geiger Counter model I use.

The radiation safety expert's answer means that a rain fallout measurement greater than 1 times background radiation is indicative of being TENORM fallout. Basically if your Geiger counter reads twice as high as normal from a rain sample, the radioactive fallout is indicative of a man made cause. The person asking the question back in October 2001 had detected levels roughly 4 times background.

Moreover, there are additional expert sources that also support that at maximum naturally produced radon daughter fallout increases by no more than 2 times. Referenced by www.TENORM.com, from: CRCPDa 1994. Report of the E-4 Committee on NORM Contamination and Decontamination/Decommissioning. Report 3. Publication 94-6. Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors, "Rainfall scours radon and its progeny from the atmosphere, causing radiation levels to rise at ground level. Some larger storms may double the gamma exposure rate for a short period of time."

(Q): If TWO times background radiation is the maximum threshold, what is the maximum level POTRBLOG has detected in Saint Louis?

(A): I have detected SIXTY TWO times background radiation here in Saint Louis on two occasions. See the videos here and here.

(Q): Why would TENORM fallout from Fukushima be hitting the Saint Louis region so hard?

(A): It is not just TENORM fallout, but the TENORM fallout may be the most easily detectable indication of other harder to detect man made fallout like Plutonium. However, there are so few people publicly testing FRESH rainfall in the proper manner that I can't definitively say that the fallout is hitting Saint Louis harder than anywhere else. But, if there were one location in the North America where the local weather conditions would have the strongest capability of pulling radioactive material out of the upper atmosphere, it would here in Saint Louis where the Jet Stream and Tornado alley meet the humid confluence of the Missouri, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers.

(Q): Could the Fukushima Fallout be impacting the entire Tornado Alley region?

(A): In more ways than one might think.

(Q): How so?

(A): There is a strong correlation between the strongest Tornado season in decades and the radioactive releases from Fukushima. It is not an implausible causation that Radioactive Fukushima Fallout is seeding the formation of Tornadoic storms in the region. In fact, it would not be surprising if somewhere in Oklahoma there is an enterprising grad student using the Fukushima fallout as a radioactive tracer in funnel cloud formation. In short, Fukushima Funnel Fallout could readily be a negative synergy where under the right conditions the radioactive fallout seeds the formation of tornadoes and then washes itself out on the land below. Such a causation would also serve to explain the lack of spring rain and resulting massive drought in Texas; if there were ever a time to pray for drought this would be it.

(A): We avoid dairy products, leafy vegetables, and fruits. We also avoid flying anywhere. If we have to drive through the rain, we set the vehicle's environmental controls to recirculate and turn on the air conditioning. Moreover, we have purchased most of the items on the Amazon list shown on the POTRBLOG website. But most importantly, we do our best to STAY OUT OF THE RAIN.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Had a quick light passing of drizzle over the house, just enough to barely dampen the roads. I took a sample from the hood of the truck using the standard paper towel method. The truck had not been driven in the last several hours, and was just sitting in our driveway. The sample returned approximately 0.09 mR/hr, or 9 times background radiation.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Recently, I have come across Fukushima fallout charts produced by the Berkeley Radiation Air & Water Monitoring Team (BRAWM) of the University of California Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department. What is clear from those charts is that the BRAWM team has the brawn (tools and resources) to identify radioactive nuclides, but not the scientific intellect (BRAINS) to research the data. One significant research error the BRAWN team has made is to identify several high atomic weight radionuclides from their measured fallout as “NATURAL”. Functionally this error would be the equivalent of the LSU’s Petroleum Engineering department identifying the oil that wash up on the Gulf shores from the BP disaster as being “natural” and therefore not attributable to BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.

Obviously such an LSU engineering team would never mark the BP oil spill as “natural” because the visible abundance of the “natural” oil would make it clear to the public that its abundance on the beaches was most likely manmade and unnatural. On the other hand, UCB’s BRAWN team’s declarations of “natural” radionuclides in the fallout may go unquestioned because the differences in pre to post Fukushima abundance are not visible to the public's eye. However, it is NOT something that should have escaped the questioning of a competent research engineering team. The fact that it apparently escaped the collective BRAWN team’s intellect is telling; It smacks of a lack of engineering due diligence at max, and a lack of full disclosure at min. But, it is to be expected given that the majority of the field of nuclear fallout detection and weapons proliferation detection is based on looking for key radionuclide markers that do not readily occur in the environment . In those scenarios “natural” fallout is noise to be avoided; such avoidance of data has the potential to be a very dangerous , yet easily concealed , oversight in the Fukushima disaster.

To relate the situation back to the BP Gulf oil spill, Berkeley’s fallout detection methodologies would be the equivalent of ONLY looking for oil that has metallic contamination from the pumping rig’s metal pipes, and then claming that any oil NOT contaminated with trace amounts of well pump metal must be from natural oil seeps (and not the from the BP well blowout). In the BRAWN team’s defense, most nuclear engineers study well defined and controlled nuclear systems, be they bombs or nuclear generating plants. The current situation at Fukushima is massively different; it is a long term uncontrolled and unconstrained experiment. Berkely’s BRAWN engineers have no experience with the witches’ brew of nuclear reactions, fission products, photofission products, transmutations and nuclear spallation products occurring in Fukushima and/or downstream in the upper atmosphere. They apparently do not have the conceptual research experience to enter that white space. Even the simple concept that the potentially 40 year old fuel rods stored on the Fukushima site might be loaded with “natural” radioisotopes seems to have escaped them. For an interesting read on transmutation and decay products found in 10 year old fuel rods click here.

The University of California Berkeley Nuclear Engineering department’s BRAWM team does have the BRAWN (tools and resources) to quantify and prove that the “natural” radionuclides they have detected are not from Fukushima and are in no greater abundance than pre-Fukushima ; but will they now do so? I would suggest that while the BRAWN team’s research intellect may have failed them, The engineering department’s business intellect would suggest to them that researching and showing large amounts of “natural” fallout arising from Fukushima might cause such a public stir to actually affect the nuclear industry and reduce the very life blood enrollment demand for nuclear engineers.

A better research institution with access to the sheer brawn of the BRAWM team’s test equipment and research library would sample fresh rain fallout and compare the data with historical data gathered from other experienced researchers. Such an analysis would allow the researcher to capture the complete performance envelope of Fukushima fallout and identify truly “natural” contamination from un-natural fallout containing “natural” radionuclides. An additional goal of such a research project might be to correlate the Geiger counter readings of easy to detect short half life fallout against harder to detect longer half life fallout; such a finding would be useful for rapidly determining threat levels faced local populations and first responders. I don’t suspect that such work will be forth coming out of Berkeley.

But, I do suspect that if Berkely’s BRAWN team ever commented about this blog post, they would state that whole thing was silly because short half life radiation in the USA is natural and could not come out of Fukushima. To hearken back to the BP Gulf oil disaster analogy, the equivalent logic would be that the dead fish washing up on the Gulf Coast shore are natural and could not have come from a BP oil well.

Now of course, dead fish aren’t pumped up from underwater oil wells. But dead fish are a consequence of manmade oil spills. A competent engineering group would use their brawn (resource and tools) to investigate such a circumstance before declaring it natural. Maybe a good place to start would be to look at the magnitude of such detections pre and post Fukushima. This pre-Fukushima work from Klemic in 1996 shows maximum rain washout peaks of 0.012 mR/hr. This post-Fukushima data taken after several days of rain and tornadoes shows a fallout reading of 0.60 mR/hr; that result is nearly sixty times greater than Klemic’s. One would expect all the natural washout to have occurred in the first few hours during the previous days of rain; 60 times background radiation is a lot of dead fish to be explained away as “natural” by the BRAWN team. One would think that an institution educating engineers that will sign off on the safety of future nuclear work, would hold the current safety of the public in higher regard. In that light, I would prefer to believe that the University of California Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department's failure is a case of all BRAWN and NO BRAINS.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

This was an INCREDIBLE set of Tornadoes which blasted through Saint Louis. These tornadic storms contained the strongest radiation I have detected to date. At over 2 feet of distance from the fallout rain exposed truck, the Geiger counter read 4 times background radiation (0.038 mR/hr).

Several samples were taken from the truck, the max reading was 0.62 mR/hr or 62 TIMES background radiation. The radiation appeared to be a roughly 50/50 split of Alpha and Beta radiation. When this sample was taken, it had already been STORMING for over 1.5 hours, obviously precluding any chance of this fallout being from naturally generated washout.

These readings come from a piece of sheet metal sampled with a paper towel during the 5/22/11 10pm radioactive thunderstorms passing over Saint Louis Missouri. The reading was approximately 6 times background radiation. Note how excess water in the paper towel sample attenuated the radioactivity reaching the Geiger counter.

Friday, May 20, 2011

STAY OUT OF THE RAIN!.
This is probably the most radioactive reading involving the fewest drops of rain taken to date by POTRBLOG. The sample was from about a 5 mile drive through very light on and off rain drops. Where it not for the crazy high reading yesterday, I would not have sample these few rain drops. The small sample came back and astonishing 22 times background radiation, 0.223 mR/hr.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The first sample was taken 5/19/11 @ 5pm from the hood / grill after a 17 mile drive in on and off drizzle; the sample measured 0.375 mR/hr ( 37 times background radiation). Other samples were taken from the rear and roof of the truck. The results indicated that the radioactivity was emanating directly from the absorbed rain drops and the little to no activity resulted from road spray. Given the small amount of liquid sampled, a reading of 0.375 mR/hr is disturbingly high.

Fukushima Daiichi has opened many people's eyes to the vulnerability of nuclear generation facilities to electricity loss and infrastructure failure. One risk area the the general public may not be fully aware of is infrastructure collapse due to either a High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) Blast or a Solar Storm / Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). A HEMP Blast would come from an enemy detonating a nuclear weapon a few hundred miles over head. For the time being, we can rule out a HEMP Blast because it makes no sense for an enemy to attempt that type of attack given that the Federal Reserve is attacking the nation more efficiently than any enemy could desire.

Much work has already been done to quantify the destructive potential of Solar Storms to our electrical grid and nation, but none of the publicly available research has focused on the potential of a large number of American nuclear reactors simultaneously experiencing a Fukushima type failure. The map at the top of this post is a high altitude analysis of the nuclear generation facilities in the USA that could suffer a multiple years long electrical grid failures from a solar storm equal in size to the one that hit the USA in 1921.

The map above correlates the data from a pre-Fukushima solar event impact study to the locations of nuclear generation facilities in the USA. The large red circles are areas of the Nation that are likely to experience a total collapse and multiple year loss of the electrical grid from a May 13, 1921 sized solar storm. The primary failure mode is the solar induced destruction of very large electrical transformers. Moreover, these transformers are no longer manufactured in the United States, and the lead time to produce them is very long. The loss of those transformers and the long time it takes to replace them are the primary drivers that would keep the electricity off in the circled areas for potentially YEARS.

Based on the high level data, approximately 71 nuclear plants in the USA are at direct risk from such a solar storm. Not only would those nuclear generation plants be without a electricity for cooling their fuel pools, the logistics collapse from the loss of gasoline stations, transportation systems, food distribution, water distribution, and the associated societal upheavals would make the difficulties of the Fukushima recovery effort look like a walk in the park.

However, those are not the only threats from a post-Fukushima Solar Storm. Fukushima Daiichi has resulted in the on going long term release and dumping of high atomic weight elements into the atmosphere. Those Fukushima particles, both radioactive and non-radioactive, provide the basis for large scale solar particle interactions via Solar Storms / Coronal Mass Ejections. The associated spallation and fission reactions will form new radioactive fallout simultaneously over the entire sun lit side of the Northern Hemisphere. A preliminary analysis of such an even may be found here, further analysis on that eventuality is to follow.

Updated 8/10/11
The video below gives further analysis on the interaction of Fukushima high atomic weight fallout with Solar Storms

Mr Gundersen's data indicated the Plutonium was traveling at a supersonic velocity, and he extrapolated that the chunk must have been propelled by a supersonic shock wave, hence the explosion was a detonation. However, those extrapolations are faulty. The simplest example that shows the flaw is a firearm. Firearms propel bullets at supersonic speeds by deflagration (a detonation would likely destroy the firearm). An improved way to do the analysis is to postulate the force the Plutonium chunk was exposed and use F=MA to solve for the acceleration and so forth.

Of course, the matter of importance is not that Mr Gundersen might have made a better extrapolation. The matter of importance is that people like Mr Gundersen have stepped forward to take point as part of a crowd sourced Fukushima THINK TANK.

No one person can be expected to have all the knowledge to examine and understand the unprecedented experimental events that are on going as a result of Fukushima. But in the obvious and substantial absence of Government stepping forward and examining the totality of the Fukushima issue publicly, the only available solution is crowd sourced and internet driven; it is an ether devoid of the traditional media and one where academic institutions fear to tread.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Its been more Seattle type weather here in Saint Louis, Mo; mostly nasty cold drizzle.
I just took a sample from the hood of my truck, it has been sitting in the drizzle for last 12 hours and was driven roughly 7 miles earlier in the day. The sample returned a max of 0.020 mR/Hr. The EPA RadNet charts indicate another washout of Beta emitters, but the Gamma emitters are still in the air. It is possible that the low cloud cover and drizzle may not have the same efficacy at washing out radioactive fallout as the strong storms have done here in the past. More data collection will be required to support any further analysis.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Drought would be better, but post Fukushima Daiichi I will call this good news. A 10:10 pm sample was taken from a vehicle which had been parked in the driveway for approximately 4 hours. The rain was a nasty Seattle type drizzle; the sample returned a max reading of 0.020 mR/hr (2 times background radiation). This is good news if your are stuck in the rain; but not so good for the local horticulture and dairy, a significant amount of Beta and Gamma radiation has fallen out on Saint Louis in the last few days.

Took this sample around 1pm, after a 20 minute 6 mile round trip driving through a Seattle Style all day rainfall. The readings max at 0.132 mR/hr, or roughly 13 times background radiation. Given that it rained twice yesterday and has been raining all day today, I am a bit surprised that the contamination reading is so high.

Friday, May 13, 2011

This sample was from less than 50 drops of rain water on my SUV, taken on the evening of 5/13/11. The sample stabilized at 0.186 mR/hr. The reading is high given the small amount of water, and data from EPA's RadNet that a significant amount of Gamma and Beta radioactive fallout had washed out of Saint Louis air approximately 20 hours earlier in a overnight rain storm. for details see: [ALERT] Avoid Produce and Dairy: EPA shows Radioactive Fallout Dumped in STL

EPA's RadNet monitoring of gross Beta and Gamma radiation in Saint Louis Missouri strongly indicates that the May 13th early morning storm dumped radioactive Gamma and Beta producing fallout on Saint Louis Missouri. Such fallout is likely to be taken up and concentrated in local fruit, vegetable, and dairy products.

Given EPA RadNet's strong indication of Gamma and Beta producing radioactive fallout on the Saint Louis Missouri area on the early morning of May 13th, and the EPA's recent announcement it would reduce testing of milk and dairy products for radiation; it would be wise to avoid consuming local fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, as these farm products take up and concentrate radioactive particles.

The attached RadNet images show a 5 day step-up function spike in both Gamma and Beta starting May 7th and an immediate step down function during the early morning rains of May 13th. The images are the clearest indications yet from EPA's RadNet monitoring of Saint Louis' Air that Fukushima fallout has been significantly deposited in Saint Louis. The May 7th starting date of the STL radiation spike and plateau is strongly correlated with reports of large radioactive releases from Fukushima Daiichi occurring at the end of April and beginning of May.

Monday, May 9, 2011

A point has been reached where government believes it controls all forms of transportation. Senator Schumer wants a "no ride" list for Amtrack; President Obama wants to tax every mile we drive; and Homeland Security's TSA wants titillation for transportation. No fly, No Grope be damned; No Taxation without Transportation!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

To most people an explosion is just a big BOOM. Most people have heard the term ‘detonation’, but few have ever heard the term ‘deflagration’. In terms of actual experiences, most people are way more familiar with deflagrations and have little familiarity with detonations. Of course this begs the question, why should anyone really care how the explosion occurred at Fukushima Daiichi #3?

From a practical perspective it doesn’t matter how the Uranium and Plutonium blasted into the air and ended up in EPA RADNET air filters in California and possibly into our lungs. The primary value in understanding the explosion at Fukushima is in redesigning future nuclear reactors and spent fuel storage pools so that the same does not happen again. However , if you have a desire to understand what happened at Fukushima, or if you would just like to be able to figure out if that house that exploded in your neighborhood was from dynamite or natural gas, read on.

The scientific difference between a detonation and a deflagration is the speed at which the flame front moves and the pressure waves expand. In a detonation the flame and pressure fronts move faster than the speed of sound. In a deflagration the flame and pressure fronts move at the speed of sound or slower. In practical every day experience, pressure waves move at the speed of sound. Since a deflagration does not move faster than a normal pressure wave, the pressures generated by a deflagration can be “pulled” towards areas of lower pressures like open windows and such. On the other hand, since the pressure waves generated by a detonation move faster than the speed of sound, those pressures cannot be “pulled” towards areas of lower pressure.

And that leads us to the practical differences between a detonation and a deflagration. A detonation will spread out in all directions equally at a rate FASTER than the speed of sound, and the resultant damage to structures will tend to be uniform in all directions. On the other hand, a deflagration will start to move in all directions uniformly but will be quickly pulled towards areas of lower pressure, the resultant damage will tend to concentrate towards the exterior of buildings. Common examples of deflagrations are, firearms and car engines; in each, a pressure wave builds and then is released towards the area of lower pressure. In a firearm the area of lowest pressure is down the barrel, hence the bullet flies out of the barrel. In a car engine’s combustion chamber the area of lowest pressure is the piston, hence the pressure pushes the piston down. If a detonation occurs in a car engine, the pressure slams the entire combustion chamber equally and causes a knock sound. Repeated engine detonations can destroy the engine. In a firearm, a detonation often destroys the gun; the pressure never redirects down the barrel and the chamber takes the brunt of it.

In terms of buildings, the most common example is a natural gas explosion. When a spark hits a house filled with natural gas and explodes, the deflagration causes the windows and exterior walls to be blown out. The interior walls will show lesser signs of damage. The damage will be greatest in areas towards the points of lowest pressures, door, windows, and exterior walls. The debris from a deflagration will be larger in size; lengths of 2x4’s and large pieces of drywall and plywood. On the other hand, a house that has exploded as the result of dynamite will have the same amount of damage on the interior walls as the exterior walls (since the pressure is moving faster than the speed of sound it cannot be “pulled” towards the exterior walls, windows, etc). The debris one finds from a detonation will be small pieces, often splinters instead of lengths or big chunks. With that knowledge in hand, we are ready to tackle the question of the explosion of Fukushima Daiichi #3.

One of the first things people notice about the Fukushima Daiichi #3 explosion was the large straight up almost mushroom cloud type blast that occurred; the first thing that crossed many people’s minds was an atomic explosion. However, that straight up ward blast is strongly indicative of a large hydrogen explosion. Hydrogen is much lighter than air and will shoot straight up when released, the effect is magnified when the hydrogen is also burning. That same blast will tend to suck up debris with it. The video of the mushroom cloud at Fukushima is primarily indicative of a hydrogen deflagration . The majority of debris photos/video I have seen from Fukushima 3 indicated greater damage to exterior walls than interior walls; the debris also appears to be larger rather than smaller. Again, these are all signs of deflagration not detonation. The question has been raised by Arnie Gundersen how the fuel rods could have shot out of Fukushima 3. The fact that larger sections of fuel rods have been found outside the building would tend to precluded a detonation. A large detonation would have tended to tear those fuel rods into small bits.

Moreover, there are several possibilities that can explain the fuel rods blasting out of the building- none of which need involve a nuclear detonation. The vacuum from a large hydrogen explosion could have sucked up the fuel rods and expelled them from the building. It is also likely that the water in the fuel cooling pond was supersaturated with hydrogen. When the explosion occurred, the hydrogen in solution in the cooling pond water would have frothed up, burned, and deflagrated, sending the fuel rods out of the top of the holding pond. Visualize a bottle of Coke dropping; the resultant the carbon dioxide coming out of solution and shooting out of the end; now instead of carbon dioxide picture it as burning hydrogen shooting out. The fuel rods would have shot out of the top of the holding pond much like a bullet shoots out of a gun when the gun powder deflagrates.

Here is a video that will let you see and hear the differences between a deflagration and detonation. Notice the during the detonation the apparatus and flag receive a greater impact, than during the deflagration. The difference is that the expanding gases from the deflagration are pulled towards the areas of lower pressure (the open air), where as the supersonic expanding gases from the detonation go in all directions uniformly .

Thursday, May 5, 2011

The readings were taken from two the hoods of two separate vehicles. Both had been in different parts of the city and in the rain for roughly the 1.5 hours. The first had been driven approximately 4-6 miles round trip through the rain; the second vehicle had been stationary.

The highest reading on the driven vehicle was 0.103 mR/hr; the highest reading on the parked vehicle was 0.075 mR/hr. Given how close the values are to each other, it is unclear if the differences are a result of the driving or just natural fallout variation from one part of the storm to another.

To date, the maximum fallout reading I have recorded in the Saint Louis area was 62x background radiation, 0.686 mR/hr on 4/15/11

Monday, May 2, 2011

I remember 9/11 very well. I remember the flags that were nailed the day after 9/11, to the big new business complex under construction near my house. I remember the strangely quiet skies.

I remember the flag ribbon magnets that materialized on every car and truck and I was gratified then to see people still cared about their country.

Toby Keith sang"as soon as we could see out of our big black eye, we lit up your skies like the Fourth of July" and we waited eagerly as Bush the second sent volunteer army troops to the Middle East to "find Osama".

But the majority of troops landed in Iraq, though we all knew Osama wasn't there. After a few billion dollars and hundreds of young lives, we began to ask "Why is Osama still alive"?

Now he is officially dead. Why am I not elated?

After 9/11 the economy tanked. I lost my job, like so many other Americans. Of course we blamed the "Mastermind". But we were the ones who had to take our shoes off before we could get on an airplane.

The government targeted the citizens of these United States with the Patriot Act. Osama bin Laden still lived somewhere in the Middle East. The majority of our volunteer army troops were directed to take out a dictator our government had propped up and then wearied of, not Osama bin Laden.

"Enemy combatants" who could be anyone, anywhere, were detained (another word for kidnapped) by our government and held without trial or due process. All Americans were frisked before they could enter major sport events, and our communications were recorded and spied upon by the government. Yet Osama bin Laden lived.

When the economic bubbles created to survive the war on Iraq burst, as bubbles inevitably do, the government engaged in the most aggressive attack on Americans yet - they destroyed our wealth and our childrens' wealth through the great bailout con of 2008. Quantitative easing plunged us into depression and opened the door for an unprecedented power grab - socialized healthcare. Our freedom to be self-determinant individuals and assume the responsibilities the Creator gave us to provide care for ourselves and our families was destroyed, while Osama bin Laden lived, well, somewhere. Trillions of dollars and a hundred thousand volunteer army troops weren't real sure where.

The people that leaped from the high floors of the World Trade Center towers, the brave souls on Flight 93 that cried "Let's Roll!", could have had no clue that their deaths were going to ignite the War on Freedom for those who survived.

Ten years later, when I heard that Osama bin Laden had been officially killed, I wondered "where is my joy?" On this long awaited day, his victims had not been avenged. The great General Stark explained why over 200 years ago.

"Live Free or Die, Death is Not the Worst of Evils."

There is an evil greater than Osama bin Laden, and it is very much alive.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

I haven't been able to watch a President address the nation since Bill Clinton; just too much disingenuousness. However given the death of Bin Laden, I wanted to hear our President speak to us.

I tuned in; turned on, and waited to hear the President speak. Disgustingly, when I heard the words "Flight", stumble, pause, advance teleprompter, "93", It was obvious that I had not tuned in to the President. Instead, I had turned on to a talking head puppet miming a teleprompter. A puppet which had no human understanding of what the union of the words Flight + 93 meant.

What American alive on 9/11/2001 could not say the words "Flight 93", without a heart felt understanding? Only a puppet would have to stumble and wait for the word "93" to scroll across the teleprompter; A human would not have needed to wait for the translation.

So who controls the puppet? Who controls the teleprompter? Follow the money. As fast as digital money is being virtually printed, it should be easy to follow the multicolored electrons to their final speculative oil holdings.

Took a fallout sample from the hood of my truck with my standard paper towel method, the reading was 0.13 mR/hr, roughly 13x background radiation.
The truck was driven approximately 7 miles round trip through the rain with a 45 minute layover for shopping.

Ethics are a moral analysis of an action. Ethics asks the question "is [an action] morally right to do, or morally wrong?"

By the very definition, you can immediately tell that ethics are subjective, as individuals subscribe to a wide variety of moral codes.

Corporations, businesses, however, having no conscience have no capacity for determining moral right or moral wrong. At a corporation, all actions are judged on economic merit. "Will [this action] increase or decrease the likelihood of a lawsuit?" "Will [this action] increase or decrease customer sales?"

There is nothing about "ethical" that applies to these decisions.

Sometimes a company will incorporate into its business model a seemingly ethical stance. "Fair Trade" and "Green" are common go-to terms designed to appeal to certain moral codes of individuals, but they are merely part of the corporations' economic sentience, and answer to the governing judgements.

Irony enters when a corporation attempts to teach its employees to protect its bottom line under the moniker of ethics (moral right and moral wrong). At best, it rightly confuses the employees who can never figure out why something that is not wrong by their individual moral code should be labeled "unethical". At worst, "business ethics" training should open the company up to lawsuits of religious discrimination for attempting to replace the workers' individual guiding moral codes with one based on corporate economics.

In all eventualities, it sets for the employees an unjustifiable standard of covering ethically questionable behavior with euphemistic stylings that intentionally conceal obscure issues of rightful concern.

Corporations should abandon the semantics of ethics and replace them with a policy of forthright communication informing employees that actions are judged by the businesses bottom line. Such an action however, while truly ethical to most people, would doubtless violate the principles of economic fitness and is so spurned in favor of the current practices of doublespeak.